Old Findlay Had Pickled A Choice Buffalo Tongue With Much Care And Secrecy, And Had Served It For Luncheon Yesterday As A Great Surprise And Treat. There Was The Platter On The Table, But There Could Be No Doubt Of Its Having Been Licked Clean.

Not one tiny piece of tongue could be seen any place.

The window was far up, and in vain did I try to convince everyone that a strange dog had come in and stolen the meat, that Hal was quite too small to have reached so far; but Findlay only looked cross and Faye looked hungry, so I gave that up. Before night, however, there was trouble and a very sick puppy in the house, and once again I thought he would die. And every few minutes that disagreeable old cook would come in and ask about the dog, and say he was afraid he could not get well - always with a grin on his face that was exasperating. Finally, I told him that if he had served only part of the tongue, as he should have done, the dog would not have been so ill, and we could have had some of it. That settled the matter - he did not come in again. Findlay has served several enlistments, and is regarded as an old soldier, and once upon a time he was cook for the colonel of the regiment, therefore he sometimes forgets himself and becomes aggressive. I do not wonder that Hal dislikes him.

And Hal dislikes Indians, too, and will often hear their low mumbling and give little growls before I dream that one is near. They have a disagreeable way of coming to the windows and staring in. Sometimes before you have heard a sound you will be conscious of an uncomfortable feeling, and looking around you will discover five or six Indians, large and small, peering at you through the windows, each ugly nose pressed flat against the glass! It is enough to drive one mad. You never know when they are about, their tread is so stealthy with their moccasined feet.

Faye is officer of the guard every third day now. This sounds rather nice; but it means that every third day and night - exactly twenty-four hours - he has to spend at the guard house, excepting when making the rounds, that is, visiting sentries on post, and is permitted to come to the house just long enough to eat three hurried meals. This is doing duty, and would be all right if there were not a daily mingling of white and colored troops which often brings a colored sergeant over a white corporal and privates. But the most unpleasant part for the officer of the guard is that the partition in between the officer's room and guard room is of logs, unchinked, and very open, and the weather is very hot! and the bugs, which keep us all in perpetual warfare in our houses, have full sway there, going from one room to the other.

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